


Learning

by spoilersweetie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:12:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/pseuds/spoilersweetie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew his River – older, calmer River, always unfazed and as pragmatic about a situation as he was obscure, and when he was running with River, no matter what the situation, they were a team; they were one. But this one – this young, wild River was as about as unpredictable as caged tiger. The Doctor didn’t run with her so much as trip over his own feet to scramble after her as she took off sprinting. She terrified, excited and exhausted him all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning

**Author's Note:**

> I have a thing about young River and I hate that we got to see so little of her on the show because I think watching her change from the psychopath into his wife would have been fascinating. You know it couldn't have happened over night. Anyway this is set during her days at university, and it starts off pretty lighthearted but does get a little heavy... I'm not really sure what happened haha and I hope the change in tone reads okay!

She terrified him.

Okay – he loved her, he knew that. He loved _her_ and however early she was in her timeline – in her life – didn’t change that, because he could no easier not love any version of River Song than he could stop breathing.

But something he was quickly finding out, was that loving someone didn’t make it any easier or provide him with any help in knowing how to handle them.

He _knew_ his River – older, calmer River, always unfazed and as pragmatic about a situation as he was obscure. They knew each other, they knew the other’s strengths and weaknesses, he understood the way her mind worked just as she did he – often they wouldn’t even need to speak to communicate something. And when he was running with River, no matter what the situation, they were a team; they were _one._

But this one – this young, wild River was as about as unpredictable as caged tiger. The Doctor didn’t run with her so much as trip over his own feet to scramble after her as she took off sprinting. She terrified, excited and exhausted him all at once.

“How early is this for you?” He shouts in her ear over the pounding music.

“What?” She shouts back.

_“How early_ – oh, never mind,” he mutters, as she laughs and holds his hand up so she can twirl under it, laughing.

He’d been going to take her to dinner. He thought she might like that – a night away from her studies, a chance for he and her to talk because he supposed from her side of things they hadn’t really ever got round to a lot of talking. Turned out River most certainly didn’t need him to have a night off – she seemed to have already been in the middle of a marvelous one when he found her striding out of the student bar on campus in a tiny dress and heels so high he was surprised she could walk.

Her face had lit up when he’d called out to her and she’d spun to see him, and then - well then one minute he was in the middle of a rather fantastic snog and the next thing he knew he was being towed along by the hand back into the bar she’d come out of as she chattered about this lovely place she knew near by she simply _must_ take him too and she just needed to get a bit of dosh first and this would only take a second as he follows her and nods numbly.

Somehow they end up here on the dancefloor - well - dancing in the middle of the bar anyway - or rather, River dancing and slinking around and against him, her green eyes bright and gleaming while the Doctor stands awkwardly and gapes at her, trying not to be affected by the movements of her body.

Finally he clears his throat and leans in to shout in her ear. “Perhaps we should get going, dear,” he tries. “Are you hungry?”

River smirks up at him from under her lashes. “ _Ravenous,_ ” she purrs in his ear before grabbing his hand and dragging him across the room.

Pushing him onto a bar stool, River pushes the drink that is placed in front of her without even having asked for one towards the Doctor, and leaning in to plant a quick kiss on his cheek leaves him there with a promise to be back in a second.

Blinking, he tries not to feel dreadfully uncomfortable amidst the noisy students and loud music, wrapping his hand round the glass as he focuses his attention on watching River cross the bar.

She slinks her way through the crowds, smiling at all those who offer greetings, until she reaches a group of lads in one of the corners and taps one of them on the shoulder, tilting her head at him as he turns to face her. The Doctor narrows his eyes as he watches them converse and soon after he sees River accept a wad of cash, tucking it down between her breasts as she leans in to press a quick kiss to the lad’s cheek before turning and strutting back over to the Doctor with a smile.

“Well that should keep us set for tonight sweetie – dinner’s on me!” She grins. “Shall we go?”

Frowning, and looking between River and the man now wandering out of the bar, he points at the money she had tucked away. “What was that for?” He leans in to ask as she swipes her drink back off him and pops the straw in her mouth, sipping from it happily.

“Oh –“ She waves a hand. “I changed some test scores for him.”

“You – _what?_ How!?”

“It was easy,” she rolls her eyes. “The university should really put better security on their system.”

“And he _paid you_ to…”

“Lots of people do,” she shrugs. “Altering scores, marking late work as in before the deadline – that sort of thing, you know? Girl’s gotta make a living. Doesn’t exactly hurt my popularity here either,” She grins, and right on cue a noisy group of students that had just burst through the doors, shout loudly and wave over at River who returns the greeting with a waggle of her fingers.

“River,” the Doctor attempts to sound as stern as possible, hand firm on her arm. “You can’t _do_ things like that – giving him a grade he hadn’t actually achieved!? You –“

“Oh hush sweetie,” she rolls her eyes. “He’s an intelligent guy,” she insists, “He just has trouble focusing. He’s capable of getting the scores I gave him, all of them are or I don’t do it. Oh look! Come meet these two Doctor they’ll _love you!_ ” She is dragging him across the room before he can utter another word of protest.

A tall blue girl with her arm wrapped round a shorter girl with blonde hair wave over to them delightedly, and River tugs the Doctor forwards with his hand as she exchanges pleasantries with them.

“This is the Doctor. He’s my boyfriend.”

The Doctor blinks at her at the word. _Boyfriend._ He’d never heard those words leave her lips in reference to him before ever, and it sounded so strange. _Boyfriend!?_ Pah - hardly! But of course - she had no idea he was (would be?) her husband, and the word was a stark reminder of how very _young_ this River was.

They end up staying at the bar for another hour - he isn’t sure how it happens but he finds himself doing three rounds of shots with River and her friends - or rather - sitting squashed in between River and the taller of the two girls and pulling faces at the shots placed in front of him while the others down them.

When he finally manages to lure her out of the bar with promises of a romantic dinner he marvels at how steadily she strolls out beside him - despite being in five inch heels and having recently downed six shots (she’d drank his) on top of goodness knows how many drinks before he found her.

“I know a brilliant place about ten minutes from here,” River enthuses as she links her arm with his. “It’s just this way -”

“Um -” He stops, tugging her towards the Tardis. “I thought we might go somewhere a little more exciting dear,” he coaxes, mostly because he highly suspects he isn’t going to like wherever she has in mind.

“Oh?” She perks up, interested.

He nods. “Paris, 1910 sound good to you? I know a great little restaurant - they do these croissants you _love_ \- of course that’s for breakfast, but dinner’s good too and you always say how much you love the champagne there -”

“Who’s ruling out breakfast?” River purrs from beside him, looking up at him under her lashes, and the Doctor falters and gulps a bit.

“Er - yes, well - we’ll see,” he chuckles.

“Hmm,” Comments Rivers as they reach the Tardis doors. He holds it open for her, gesturing inside. “We will indeed,” she winks as she slinks past him.

\--

They miss Paris. A bit. And the nineteen hundreds - a bit more. In the Doctor’s defence Italy was close - and 1629 was only a few of years out. Alright, a hundred - ish. It had a nine in it anyway. They find a lovely little inn to eat at anyhow and despite having dressed for a different century, River doesn't seemed to mind the change of plans. Well - it _is_ lovely until screams start ringing out and a man dressed in black barrels in through a window, tears through the inn and is gone before several armed officers burst in through the door.

Apparently, a group of assassins had been causing terror in the town, seemingly targeting the wealthy - murdering one family member and sending threats to kill more unless they were given large sums of money, and further delivering. They were seemingly unstoppable.

Well that was until River and her guns and her many years of training to be one of the greatest assassins of all time came along.

“Why do you even have those things!?” The Doctor waggles his finger at her as he hurries along a dark alleyway after her. “We were going out for _dinner,_ was it necessary to bring two handguns?”

“Shh keep your voice down will you sweetie!?” She hisses at him as she presses herself to the wall and peeks around the corner into a seemingly abandoned house. “And stop complaining - it’s a good thing I did isn’t it?”

“Well - yes but - that’s not the point!”

“Stay here and keep watch, I’m going inside for a better look.”

“River that’s extremely dangerous! _River!”_

But the Doctor does as he’s told because he never got his way whenever River made up her mind and with her this young he knows he wouldn’t have a hope.

The sound of yelling voices from inside startles him a few minutes later, and he’s leaping into the building, sonic at the ready and heart in his mouth before he can even think twice about it. It’s dark and he can’t find her - he follows the voices, heart pounding as he races through corridors - up creaky stairs closer to the noise and then - gunshots, one after the other and he yells her name, panic racing through his veins until he reaches the landing and tears into the large upstairs room and finally remembers that River is the only person in this century who owns a gun.

He stops dead in the doorway, panting and eyes wide as he takes in the sight of River standing between six dead bodies, gun smoking. Their swords are still limp in their grasps and by the way they are scattered around her in a circle it’s obvious they had surrounded her. She hadn’t had a choice - six against one and he knows they would have murdered her in a second. Still. He swallows.

“Are you alright?” He rasps dryly.

“Perfect,” She flashes him a smile, reloading her weapon as she steps over the bodies to walk towards him. “There’s one more - their leader. I just got the information out of one of them  - I know where he is, and they’re planning another attack tonight, come on!”

River will not hear of his insisting they let the city guards handle the last man as she sprints across the city with him on her heels, arguing that they hadn’t done a very good job of it so far, had they? He knows her better than that - she _enjoys_ this and she wants to do it on her own. He understands that - of course he can’t pretend she and he don’t share that same love of danger - that he doesn’t enjoy a challenge as much as she but it’s just something in her eyes that he hasn’t seen before - something wild about this young version of his wife than unnerves him.

They find the man - just where River had said. He doesn’t want to think about how she’d got the information out of the other one. It is almost too late - he’s crouched on the edge of a rooftop, weapon in hand and eyes intent on a man below. The climb up onto the roof behind him and River shoots the knife out of his hand.

Yelping and cursing in shock, the man whirled to face them, immediately drawing his sword as he eyes them, staring at the smoking weapon in River’s hand in astonishment.

“Who are you!?”

“Drop the sword,” the Doctor says, holding his hands up and stepping towards him. The man points it in his direction.

“Don’t come any closer - I’m the fastest swordsman this country has ever seen - and the deadliest assassin.”

River snorts and cocks her gun. The Doctor lifts a hand to her arm.

“Drop the sword. We’re handing you over to the city’s magistrate where you’ll stand trial for the crimes you’ve committed.”

The man grips his sword tighter. “A trial ends in my death.”

The Doctor grits his teeth. “You’ve killed many.”

The man looks back and forwards between the two for a moment before he shakes his head. “No,” he says, and pulls off the mask covering his face. They are stunned to see that he is little more than a boy. “I’ve killed none - this was to be my first.”

River narrows her eyes at him. “They told me you were their leader.”

He shakes his head. “That was my father - he died. Two weeks ago. Of a _fever,_ ” he scoffs the word. “The greatest assassin of all time - killed by a cold.” The boy stands up straighter. “It was up to me to take his place.”

“Well you’ll be reunited with him soon,” River snarls next to the Doctor.

“Listen,” the Doctor tries, stepping forward again with a warning glance to River, hands still held up. “It doesn't have to be this way… you don’t have to be this.”

The man points his sword warningly at the Doctor. “I am already this.”

River cocks her gun. “Are you done chatting yet sweetie?” She demands, impatience creeping into her tone.

“You saw what that weapon can do,” the Doctor tells the man urgently. “If she pulls the trigger it will kill you before you can even blink. Drop the sword… _please…”_

The young man looks between River and the Doctor with narrowed eyes that clearly hold a hint of panic - and then he closes his eyes in defeat and lets the weapon in his hands clatter to the rooftop. He tilts his head up to the sky. “I have failed you father,” he says, and the Doctor moves to step forward and then -

The shot rings out clear in the quiet night, the bang echoing around them as the boy before them falls backwards off the rooftop. A seconds silence follows as the shock sinks in and the Doctor comprehends what happened, and then he whirls on River, eyes wide and flaming with fury.

“You murdered him!”

_“He_ was a murderer,” River says.

“He’d never killed anyone!”

“So he _said,_ ” she scoffs, “Did you seriously believe him - you’re more gullible than I thought, Doctor, honestly, you of all people -”

“He’d surrendered!” He screams the words at her, cutting her off and she stares back at him, stricken, seeming to suddenly realise just how furious he was with her. “He dropped his weapon, River! And you – you _shot him – murdered him_ – cold.”

“But…” Eyes wide, she looks down at the gun in her hand. “All those bad things his gang had done… he didn’t _deserve_ to live...?” The statement is spoken like a question, and River looks so painfully, innocently confused, that the Doctor cannot bear to look at her, standing there on an empty rooftop with a smoking gun not understanding what she’d done wrong for another second. He spins from her, running a shaky hand through his hair.

“I need to go and inform the magistrate. Tell him… tell him we took care of the problem.” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t even look at you right now. Go and wait for me in the Tardis,” he orders shortly. “I’m taking you back to university.”

River isn’t waiting for him in the Tardis when he gets back, but then, he hadn’t really expected her to be.

He finds her on the rooftop where he’d left her, climbing up and moving over to sit down quietly next to her. He doesn’t know what to say to her and so simply sits next to her in silence and lets it stretch out between them.

“Do you hate me?” She finally mumbles.

The Doctor frowns. “No.”

Another pause. “I don’t understand…” She speaks quietly and shakily, and his heart softens a bit at her small, lost voice. “I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore… I’m trying, Doctor. I’m really trying to be good. But everything I do is… is wrong.”

His shoulders slump, and unable to help himself, he places a hand on her knee. “Not everything.”

“I _t is,”_ she stresses, “’Don’t do this River, you can’t do that, River what did you do that for?’!” She looks down at her hands, clasped together in her lap and her voice quietens. “I feel like I’ll never be good enough for you…”

“Oh… River. Of course you will – you _are_ of course. I -”

“I don’t think we should see each other any more.”

His hearts constrict at the thought. _Time can be rewritten._ “If... that’s what you want…”

“It’s not,” she shakes her head. “But I can’t be the woman you - you expect me to be. The one you…”

She trails off and he clears his throat next to her. “Love?”

She squeezes her eyes shut tightly and nods. “I’m not her. I don’t know how to be. And I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me. It’s like… you see me - but you - you don’t understand me. Like you’re expecting something different and you can’t work out how I can be her and not be _her…”_

“River…” He threads his hand through her own. “There’s only one you. You’re you in the future now just as much as you are then.”

She shakes her head, tries to pull away. “I’m different. _Clearly.”_

He holds tight to her hand. “You’re the same person. Your choices might be different… but what’s inside you is the same.”

“Choices are what makes a person, Doctor.”

“They’re not,” he argues, and reaches over with his free hand to tap her chest. “What’s in here is what makes you. Choices can vary. The right and wrong ones to make can be learnt… but you can’t change what’s inside.”

River does pull away then, bringing her knees up to her chest and folding her arms round them with a sigh. “Unfortunately there’s a psychopath inside me.”

The Doctor shrugs, his lips twitching up. “Hey, nobody’s perfect.”

Her head resting on her knees, she turns it to look at him sadly. “Don’t joke, Doctor.”

He sighs, and inches closer to her. “I’ll let you into a secret.”

“What?”

He leans in to whisper his response. “There’s one inside me too.”

River raises her eyebrows and looks at him for a long moment before she turns her face away to gaze out across the night.

“Well then…” she finally mumbles. “We definitely shouldn’t be together. Two psychopaths is never going to end well.”

The Doctor swallows, sharply reminded of very similar words said to him by her much older self. He lets the silence stretch out between them, both in quiet contemplation, until River lets out a heavy, loaded sigh, and speaks quietly.

“I was taught that bad should be gotten rid of. That bad people should be punished – extinguished… by whatever means it takes. I thought I was doing the right thing,” she whispers the last part, and when he turns to glance at her and sees a couple of tears slip down her cheeks, glistening in the moonlight, his hearts soften, and he puts an arm round her shoulders, pulling her in close to him as he sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises after a long moment. “I forget you’re so young… that there’s so much you need to learn yet – I forget that you weren’t raised like a normal person and… and that was _my fault.”_

She shakes her head, sniffing but he nods and continues.

“I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you. It’s _not your fault_ ,” he murmurs fervently, lips against her hair. “I should have known to stop you before.”

She doesn’t seem to know how to reply to that, and after a moment pulls away to look at him, her brow furrowed and her eyes searching his face. He isn’t expecting it when she leans in and kisses him, and makes a sound of surprise against her lips before relaxing, and lifting a hand to cup her face.

She is all teeth and urgency - as her kisses always are this young - and instead of trying to slow her down like he usually does the Doctor simply lets her take the lead, lets her bite at his bottom lip and push him down onto his back to straddle him and continue kissing him, her hips grinding down urgently against his. His hands slide over her thighs to settle on her hips and River breaks the kiss, pushing herself upright on top of him to look down into his face, panting.

“Aren’t you going to stop me?” She says, and the Doctor blinks a moment in confusion.

“Should I?”

River raises her eyebrows. “You usually do.”

Oh _. Oh._ Then that meant she was even younger than he’d thought. It also meant, unless he ran into an older version of his wife again - the chances of which were seemingly getting slimmer and slimmer - that this… this could be the last time he ever gets to make love to her. _Her firsts, his lasts._

He swallows hard, and lifts a hand to brush a curl from her forehead. Atop a rooftop in seventeenth century Italy, after a row with River’s guns on the ground still warm to the touch. It was somewhat bitterly fitting.

He shakes his head, and River’s eyes widen a little and then darken with unmistakable desire. She leans down to kiss him again, letting out a low moan into his mouth as her hands move deftly between them, yanking her flowing skirt up out of the way and unfastening his trousers. The Doctor slips his fingers beneath her dress as she tugs at his zipper, unsurprised to find her flesh bare, and slides his fingers through her warm slick folds, relishing the way she breaks from his mouth to gasp in air against his lips.

“Want you inside me,” she mumbles, tugging at his trousers, and kneeling up over him so she can get them down and out of the way. She strokes her small hand up and down his length when she has him free, and the Doctor lets out a groan, hips thrusting up into her touch and fingers pressing inside her. When River is older they can spend hours on foreplay alone, but this River astride him now bats his hand away impatiently, and wrapping her hand around him, she moves on top of him to line him up with her entrance and with her eyes locked onto his, she sinks down on him, taking him straight inside.

He watches her jaw slacken and her eyelids flutter, determined to memorise the look on her face, knowing it may be the last time he ever witnesses it.

It isn’t exactly how he’d imagined their first time together for her to be. He’d privately promised her roses and champagne and silk sheets - a suite on the luxury hotel that floats in space perhaps, one of the rooms on the top floor surrounded in a dome of glass so they are amongst the stars. He’d undress her slowly, kissing every inch of newly uncovered skin and bringing her to climax with his mouth and his fingers over and over, before he’d enter her and make love to her slowly with his eyes locked onto her own, drinking in every second and kissing her to capture every gasp.

Of course, he should have known that things with River never went as planned. But as she fucks him on the rooftop, moving hard and fast on top of him, her mouth open and fingers curled tightly in his shirt, his name spilling from her lips over and over, he knows he wouldn’t have it any other way.

She grabs his hand and pushes his fingers beneath her skirt to her clit, and in moments she is coming around him with a cry, her inner walls clenching and spasming and hips jerking on top of him. He grits his teeth and holds out, waiting until she collapses forward on his chest, panting hard, until he wraps his arms around her and rolls them carefully, twisting her beneath him and pausing over her to look down into her face. Her eyes are cloudy with pleasure, and he smooths sweat damp curls back with gentle hands, and tracing a thumb over her lips until she takes it in her mouth and _bites._

She pushes her hips up as he yelps, deliberately clenching around him and when he stares down at her in shock with his thumb cradled to his chest, she smirks and quirks an eyebrow in a challenge, and he realises that this River doesn’t understand tenderness yet. Well then, fine. He would use the language she does understand.  

Pulling out of her, he pushes her over onto her stomach, dragging her dress up round her waist and pushing her legs apart to slide back inside her. He thrusts hard into her and hears her breath catch in her throat and then the low moan she lets out as her nails scrape against the rooftop either side of her and she arches her back, knees spreading and pressing into the cold hard surface to tilt her hips up and back towards him.

“Oh fuck,” she pants breathlessly, “ _fuck_ … Doctor - sweetie - I didn’t know you had it in you…”

His mouth by her ear he growls through her hair, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet, River Song…”

He wouldn’t tell her that she was the one who taught him to love like this - taught him that passion and carnal lust did not have to be separate to love and deep feelings - rather they defined it - made it better _. I love you,_ he bites into her neck, his cock deep inside her and his hands pressed over her own, and River cries out beneath him, pushing right back and urging him on with every breath and twitch of her body.

She comes again quickly, and he is right behind her this time, his mouth open against her shoulder to stop words she isn’t ready to hear yet from pouring out as he comes inside her, jerking into her quivering body until he moves his mouth from her skin to gasp in air and slumps over her.

River is gasping for breath beneath him, her body still twitching with pleasure, and when he lifts his head from her shoulder he sees the deep red mark from his mouth, and presses his lips to it softly.

“Oh God,” she finally groans, shifting beneath him and sounding perfectly satisfied. “That was _so_ worth waiting for…”

Smiling into her hair, he presses another kiss to her neck before pushing himself up and off her and pulling her dress back down to cover her, rolling onto his back to collapse beside her and dazedly reaching down to tug  his trousers back up. Where an older River would turn to him and bat his hands away to tuck him back in and zip him up with a kiss pressed to his cheek before curling into his side, this younger one sits up and gets shakily to her feet, bending down to pick up her gun and setting about reloading and locking it and tucking it safely back into the holster on her thigh before she turns to him with a smirk, shaking out her mussed curls.

“Well are you going to lie there all night?”

He blinks up at her and she quirks an eyebrow, and he quickly clears his throat and gets to his own feet, tugging awkwardly at his clothing.

“Right. We should get back,” he says and River nods.

“I find myself in desperate need of a shower,” she quips as she begins to climb down off the rooftop.

He’d thought it had been an invitation, but it turns out River had meant her own shower back in her dorm room at university. Alone.

“You could stay,” he suggests, hovering awkwardly by the console when he lands them at her request. “Just for the night I mean - there’s a shower on here somewhere with twelve jets and a setting that even washes your hair for you -”

But River shakes her head with a chuckle. “Maybe another time sweetie,” she throws over her shoulder as she strolls to the door. She pauses with her hand on the door poised to push it open, and turns back to look at him a little warily.

“I… I am sorry… about what happened with the assassin…” she speaks quietly. The Doctor sighs, shoulders slumping.

“It’s not me you should be sorry for,” he replies.

“I know that,” she says. “I’m not apologising to you, I just wanted you to know.”

He stares at her a moment before a smile comes to his lips, and he bounds down the steps from the console towards her, and takes her face in his hands to kiss her.

_You’re forgiven_ , he tells her with his lips pressed to hers.

“Well, I should go,” she pulls back after a moment with her hands planted on his chest.

He sighs, stepping back as he nods. “I’m sure you’re very busy,” he says reluctantly.

“Mhm, very busy,” she places a hand on the door. “Classes to skip, exams not to study for… that sort of thing.”

“River,” he says sternly, opening his mouth to scold her further, but she winks and blows a kiss.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long,” she says before she slips from the Tardis.

The Doctor lets his shoulders slump as the door swings shut and he’s left alone.

“I hope I don’t,” he mumbles to the closed doors. 


End file.
